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saidevo
28 January 2008, 04:42 AM
The English language, like Samskritam (saMskR^itaM), is essentially spiritual, perhaps in most of its words, as the author has expertly highlighted in many of the keywords he has used in his work.

The author's title to this chapter--as the present stage of the Jiva, ridden with uncertainties and doubts in the first two answers to his Great Question--is one such instance: uncertainties; uncertain--ties.

The Webster's English Dictionary defines that the word 'uncertainty' "ranges in implication from a mere lack of absolute sureness [uncertainty about a date of birth] to such vagueness as to preclude anything more than guesswork [the uncertainty of the future];

and 'doubt' implies such a lack of conviction, as through absence of sufficient evidence, that there can be no certain opinion or decision [there is doubt about his guilt].

The one goal

As the Jiva realizes the insufficiency of the first two answers, he gets into a stage which is tentative, temporary, full of uncertainty and full of questioning. Now the Jiva is

• baffled in his efforts to understand the World-Process completely;

• barred out from a perfect religion-philosophy, a system of knowledge which would consistently and directly unify and guide his thought, desire and action (head, heart and limbs) in this and all lives to come;

• unable to rest peacefully in a mere incomplete knowledge, in a mere belief which remains outside of his daily life and is often coming into conflict with it.

So the Jiva goes back again and again to the first two answers, which are a religion and philosophy, however imperfect. But each such going back is only the preliminary to a still stronger going forward. The Jiva is now in the grasp of an indefeasible reflectiveness, of a craving of the intellect that may not be repressed (viveka, vicAra, kShama, dama--footnote #1). And so he progresses onwards to and then from the second stage, driven by doubts, harassed by heart-oppressing questions.

What is really sought by the soul, is the supremacy of a One, and that One, My-Self; for so alone can My immortality be assured.

Back to the first answer...

But the Jiva has only begun seeking, and is fully conscious of its own weakness. It cannot at once leap to the knowledge and certainty of its own supremacy.

In the Arambha, the beginning, of its search, it can reach only the Arambha-vAda where he depends on the karuNA, compassion of the Supreme One to confer Immortality on him.

But this first answer is not only intellectually illogical; it is also emotionally full of insecurity. It satisfies neither head nor heart and the Jiva is pestered with doubts:

• Where is the ground for unshakeable Eternal Faith?

• How can I trust that this God, outside of me, different from me, will never be other than benevolent to me?

• His present conduct to all His creatures, all around is it not very cruel, very non-benevolent?

• This path makes me utterly dependent on the mercy of another. It completes my servitude.

• I have been created out of Nothing by Another, at His Will. I can be annihilated into Nothing by that Other, at His Will-full Caprice.

...and the second answer

The pariNAma, transmuted result of such critical scrutiny of the 'first answer', is the second, the pariNAma-vAda; but that also turns out, on similar close examination, to be no less devoid of certainty of knowledge and assurance of feeling.

Two even finite things cannot occupy the same space; much more, two Infinites; they would be constantly limiting, finit-ising, struggling to oust and abolish, each, the other.

The main object of the soul's quest is only this: "How shall I make sure of my Eternity? " "How shall I be freed from fear of death?" "How shall I obtain salva-tion, ab-solu-tion, from all ills?" The paths he has trodden in finding the first two answers might have given him temporary peace, but he finds them to be blind alleys, ending in blind unreasoning or ill-reasoning faith, or in agnosticism, assertion of the impossibility of final knowledge and the futility of all search. There must be one supreme solution that solves all other questions in relationship with and as contained in it (oneness and manyness--footnote #2).

Countless doubts and questions

The many doubts and questions which the Jiva gathers and which all lead up to and merge in the one great question, are mainly these: (Why seek answer to so many questions?--footnote #3)

What am I? and Whence? and Whither bound? and Why? what is Spirit, Self, Ego, Subject? what are these other selves, Jivas, like and unlike myself? what is Matter, the World, Not-Self, Not-I, non-Ego, Object? what is Life? what is Death? what is Motion? what are Space and Time? what is Rest? what are Being and Non-Being? what is Consciousness? what is Unconsciousness? what is Pleasure? Pain? Mind? Body?

What are Knowledge, Knower, Known? Sensation? Senses? what are the objects sensed, the various elements of Matter? what is the meaning, use, necessity, of media of sensation? what is an Idea? what are perception, conception, memory, imagination, expectation, design, judgment, reason, intuition? what are Dreams, Wakings, and Sleepings? what are Abstract and Concrete? what are archetype, genus, and species? what are universals, particulars, and singulars? what is Truth? Reality? Illusion? Error?

What is Desire? what are the subjects and the objects of desire? what are Attraction and Repulsion, harmony, and discord? what is an Emotion? what are Love and Hate, pity and scorn, humility and fear? what is Will? what, it any, is Free-will?

What are Action, acted on, and actor? what are Organs? Organism? what is the meaning of stimulus and response, Action and Reaction? what is the real meaning and significance of power, might, ability, force, or Energy? what is Change, creation, transformation, evolution, dissolution? what are Cause and Effect, Accident and Chance, Necessity and Destiny, Law and Breach of Law, Possible and Impossible?

What is a Thing? what are Noumena and Phenomena? what are essence, substance, attribute, quality, quantity, number? what are One and Many, some and all, Identity and Difference? What is Thought? are thought and thing, ideal and real--are they same or different, and how and why?

What are Speech and Language, command, request, and narration, Social life and organisation? what is Art? what is the Relation between things and Jivas? individualities and group-souls?

What is Good and what is Evil? what are Sin and Virtue? Right and Wrong? Right and Duty? what is Conscience? what is Liberty? what are Order, Evolution, the World-Process? are Jivas bound and helpless, or are they free, and if not free, mukta, 'liberated', how may they become so? how may sin and sorrow cease? what is the Cause of sin and sorrow? Why and How has this sinful and sorrowful world come into existence? how may, and why may not, joy, happiness, bliss, love, and beauty only pervade the universe? how may Salva-tion, Ab-solu-tion, be won? who can bestow it? is it any Other, or the Self itself?

Let the Jiva not despair from these questions that harry and pursue him like foes. The intensity and stress of his vairAgya (vairAgya, mumukSha--footnote #4) will soon break up the shell of selfishness that limits consciousness in him into a personal-self-consciousness, and will transform it into the All-Self-Consciousness. Then that Inmost Mystery of the Universe, that is now hidden from his sight, shall stand revealed. The energy of that vairAgya will transform his hurrying feet into wings, on which he will rise high above the labyrinth of doubts and questions; and from that height he will be able to master all the foes that harried and pursued him so relentlessly (metaphysics covers everything--footnote #5).

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NOTE: The sempiternal longing
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Who am I, whence, how, whither, why?, this has been asked in the very same words, so to say, by Shankara of India and Bergson of France, to mention only two out of innumerable seekers. Omar Khayyam of Persia has put the question in the very same words also, in beautiful setting:

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy nilly blowing.

But he was not a seeker for the answer, but had satisfied himself that answer was impossible...

But the Indian questioners put before this question, the other question "how may pain be abolished," as the main motive for all philosophico-religious enquiry, and then take up the other as a consequent, abolition of pain ensuing ultimately on realisation of the true Nature of the Self, which Nature includes Relation with the Not-Self.

All the many questions stated in this chapter are only either the metaphysical, or the logical, or the psychological, or the ethical, pragmatical, practical, or the religious, aspects, forms, and derivatives, of this ultimate problem of all problems. Many of them are answered, from the standpoint of what is regarded here as the final answer to the main question, in the course of the present work; others are dealt with in the other works of the writer.

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Footnotes:
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1. viveka, vicAra, kShama, dama

विवेक, viveka, ever-present discrimination between the Transient and the Permanent; and विचार, vicAra, ever-present reflection on the Why and Wherefore of things, whence arise the क्षम, kShama (patience, endurance), दम, dama (self-restraint, self-control), etc., which are part of the traditional qualifications of the seeker after truth, the student of Vedanta, the aspirant for the final knowledge (or, illumination, experience, including knowledge, emotion, will) and for mokSha, freedom (from doubt and error and all ills; for all ills, wants and pains and restlessness, are but the consequences of Primal Error, as will appear later on.)
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2. oneness and manyness

Manyness is patent, all around. One-ness is not so evident. But the craving for a Unity which would enmesh all Multiplicity without destroying it, is inherent in the human soul because it is Itself the Final Unity, and yearns to regain what it feels it has lost. Search for assurance of this Final Unity is Meta-physics, 'beyond-physics'.

This same craving and search for unity, on limited, but ever larger and larger, scales, is manifest in all departments of human life, political, economical, social, educational, scientific, religious. But then forcing of unity, governed by the false self of separatist egoist individualism, destroys the multiplicity and eventually meets with revolt.

Only Metaphysics, which is Spiritual Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Keligion, all in one, can lead to the desired result, by teaching to Mankind at large, how the desired Unity should and can come willingly and eagerly from within, peacefully, creating world-wide Concord, instead of being imposed from without violently, whence world-wide Discord.
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Why seek answer to so many questions?

3. For crowds of such questionings, see, eg., sarva-sAra and nirAlamba Upanishads, also Svetasvatara Upanishad, Rg-veda X.1.21. and Atharva-veda X.ii.

Why refer to so many other questions, when the one "that has to be directly dealt with, is "How can the Jiva avoid sorrow and secure happiness?" Because whole and parts are interdependent; no part can be fully understood until all other parts are understood, and the relation of all to each and each to all, and of each and all to the whole and the whole to each and all, is understood, generally. In other words, until the whole is understood, nothing is understood, really.

To secure my happiness, I must find out the causes and conditions of my joys and sorrows, these are connected with 'objects, the objective world', and with other Jivas and their joys and sorrows. It becomes indispensable, therefore, for me to find out the exact nature of all these (which may all be classified under the three categories of the I or 'Subject', the not-I or 'Object', and the Relation between them, in order to secure my essential happiness. To prescribe properly for the disease of any one organ, the physician must have knowledge about all organs of the body, and their inter-workings), generally. Compare the current saying, "to know every thing about some one thing, and something about every other thing, is culture".
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4. vairAgya, mumukSha
वैराग्य, vairAgya, is the passionate revolt from all limitation of the Self, from all selfishness, all selfish and personal attachments in himself as well as others, which constitutes the indispensable pre-requisite to a true, earnest, and fruitful enquiry into the origin and end of things, and is the counterpart of मुमुक्ष, mumukSha, the yearning for liberation from pain, the essential pain of bonds, limitations, doubts and fears and lack of the supreme and final Self-dependence.

The mystics' "Dark Night of the Soul", before it attains final certainty, the "Slough of Despond," are allied to, though they may not be quite the same as, vairAgya.

In order to lead successfully to the great realisation, the vairAgya must be sAtvika, benevolent, philanthropic, not rAjasa mere cynicism, or tAmasa, mere indifference, sloth. To see others in pain should be the greatest pain.
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5. metaphysics covers everything

The expression employed here may appear a little too impassioned. This has been done purposely to show that metaphysic deals, not only with the single cold and sober department of intellect in life, but with the whole of life as manifesting in cognition, desire, and action, and has to pass through the travail of a rebirth that would encompass all these. The whole life of the true and earnest enquirer is put into such search, hence the mixture of science and emotion.
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yajvan
28 January 2008, 07:45 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Namaste saidevo,
thank you for your post. The question becomes then where does the innate desire for Unity come from? It seems to be hard-wired into our system.

And for some they could care less about this state of being as the time is not ripe for them.

May Vāmeśvarī be there to assist and help.

pranams